IMMOLATED IRELAND.

NZ Truth, Issue 114, 24 August 1907, Page 1

IMMOLATED IRELAND.

Protestants Dragooned : Catholics Gagged.

The extent to which the lucre-lov-ing Liberals of England— the "base, brutal, and bloody Whigs," as Daniel O'Connell called them— will go, m their attempted repression of Irish discontent, is revealed most clearly by the events of the last few dfeays m "the most distressful country" itself. The revelation should make it clear to Irishmen, whether they be Catholics or' Protestants, that there is no falsep friend, no more unscrupulous foe, indeed, to any of the. aspirations of • Irishmen, no matter what their religious convictions, than the average "Liberal" Administrator of Affairs m the alleged United Kingdom. It should also open the eyes of the sturdy and courageous Protestant -Irish, for the latest demonstration of the baseness and brutality of the Whigs is m Protestant Ulster. That the present Liberal Government was quite capable of preparing for the massacre of Protestant Irishmen— as readily as Liberal Governments has previously slaughtered Catholic Irishmen — was quite plain to us ; for it would only to m strict .accordance with all the traditions of >Liberal administration. Moreover, the present Liberal Government contains two men, one of whom, Asquith, had his striking fellow-countrymen at Feather stone shot down, by soldiers, while the other, John Burns, defended this shameful slaughter. * * * What is the position of affairs m Ulster, which the British Government is hurriedly filling with troops, and machine guns, m order to intimidate and, probably, to. massacre, the 1 people of Belfast ? Why that there are three strikes of no little importance among the bold Belfast "boys" ; and that the band of bourgeois now battling for boodle as Ministers of the Crown m England are apparently determined to reso-rt to military force m order i to overawe the strikers 'I Six hundred of the men on strike are, to the alarmed astonishment of the boo-dle-bagging bourgeoisie of Britain, members of the police force. These policemen are thoroughly discontented with the cheese-paring economy, —Worthy only of a Hebrew Houndsditch huckster— with which they are treated under, the regime of the. present Liberal Government ; and, consequently, they left their beats, and demanded higher wages and better pensions. The police m ißoscommon, L&itrim, Galway, and Mayo! are quite as discontented as those of Belfast, and ,strongly sympathise with their Belfast brethren. Nobody would now be surprised to hear that the policemen of the places mentioned had also gone out on strike. The "Liberal"- Lieutenant of Ireland, that stony Scotch Whig, the. Earl of Aberdeen, refuses to receive a petition from the protesting policemen, and' shrilly scolds them for striking "at a critical moment" — as if he himself would not be shrewd enough to select a "critical" moment if he wished to go on any sort of strike J. * * • It does not, however, appear that tfche policemen did actually select the "critical moment." They had left their beats some days before the strikes of carters and dock . laborers took place, and the local capitalists sought to' fill the plaoes of the carters and dockers by importing Liverpool blacklegs. Then "intimidation" is alleged "to have been resorted to by the striking dock laborers and carters. The policemen then "temporarily" resumed duty ; but threatened to call out 95 per cent, of 'their men if, m the meantime, their demands were not granted. 'Apparently they have come out again, for Belfast is being flooded with soldiers and packed with the murderous machine guns invented by Hiram Maxim. On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 31st ult:, there were five rjhousand troops m Belfast ; and, on Friday, the Second Battalion of the Essex Regiment had- been transferred to Belfast. The authorities were, also, hurriedly recruiting "large numbers of, men for the Royal Irish Constabulary, men who were thus to be used as blacklegs against the constables on strike. Meanwhile agitation m several other cities, including the southern cities of Cork and Waterford, was increasing, * • • It does not appear that there have been any acts of violence ;it is simply an example of panic among the plutocrats. There is no animal that is more easily scared than your boodlinc bourgeois ; and thus it is that ithe Protestant Irishmen of fteKast

are being subjected to the outrage of their city "being suddenly transformed into an armed camp.. The Ministry that is responsible for this, too, contains John Burns, who once helped to organise the famous strike of London, policemen ! There is no fathoming the hypocrisy of the .Liberals ; it is as detestably deep as the Bottomless I Pit. One thing is pretty- certain, however, and this ■is that the hostility •of Irishmen to Liberals is likely to be very greatly increased by the recent events. Prob-aibly, Belfast and other parts of Ulster will at . the next Election return to the House of Commons Labor members, more hostile to. the Liberals than .to the Tories. The Labor vote m Belfast is, already-, a considerable power, and the military menaces of the Government are sure to increase its strength. * * * - Meanwhile, what ' is Redmond, who poses as the leader of Irish Nationalism, doing m this matter ? What is Devlin, the member for West Belfast, doing ? Apparently, nothing.' Here is an opportunity for these men to show —as did the best and bravest of the Irish Nationalists m 1798, m 1848, and m 1867— that, m their fight for Erin, they know no religion ; yet the i Redmondites are sinisterly silent, or strangely slow to . speak. What would Theobald Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Robert Emmett, Smith O'Brien, or even James Stephens have thought of such cowardly complais-. ance when their Protestant fellowcountrymen were being dragooned by British soldiers and maliciously menanced with merciless Maxims ? Their trumpet-tongued tirades against such tyranny would have rent the heavens. Tfoe opportunity is unique for Redmond to unite the Protestant Irish with- the Catholic Irish against bourgeois British brutality. It is' not surprising that the Irish-American Sinn Fein men tell Redmond, without aay extraordinary consideration for his possibly sensitively fine feelings, that he ought to show "more ginger." A dose of ginger taken internally, would probably be found by Redmond to be useful and stimulating ;: it would, no doubt, accelerate his circulation and quicken his brain. * * * ■ ■■ The cable tells us that the IrishAmericans are becoming decidedly active m the Sinn Fein -.organisation", and that they threaten to stop their flow of funds to Redmond, unless he shows more "ginger" and adopts more practical steps to secure "national independence. " The Sinn Fein men do not believe m electing men to the -House of Commons, but would have the Irish people elect a Parliament to meet m Dublin: They also strongly oppose the 1 enlistment of Irishmen m the Army, and they advocate the withdrawal from the British. Armed Forces of all voluntary support. Some, of the most ardent and intellectual of the Young Irelanders have joined the Sinn Fein movement, and these young men, who constitute the flower of the Irish people, are actively at work m all parts of Ireland popularising (the teachings, of the Sinn Fein organisation. By means of the General Council of County Councils, and by means of all the numerous local bodies throughout Ireland, the Sinn Feiners believe, that they can protectively foster Irish manufactures and commerce, establish an Irish Consular Service, re-estab-lish an Irish Mercantile Marine, control and manage transit, properly utilise waste lands, abolish pauperism, and achieve real Home Rule. To some extent, it is a new form of national organisation of the boycott,, and is opposed by. the Redmondites because its leaders demand the withdrawal of Irish members from the Parliament sitting at Westminster. * •* » There is, indeed, a considerable loss of faibh among Irishmen throughout the world m the Redmondite Party. This, party is never' likely to -get Home Rule, from the Liberals, who are now m power ; it is actually more likely to get it from the Tories, although they do call" themselves Unionists. As a matter of fact, as has been repeatedly pointed out by the patriotic William O'Brien', the Tory Lord Dunraven offered the Redmondites what was practically an Irish Parliament— and It was refused. Lord Dunraven called it a Statutory Body, and proposed that it should consist -of the whole of the Irish members of both Houses of Parliament. Tt is probable—almost certain, according to William O'Brien— that powers would have been conferred upoa the Statutory, Body ;

almost as great as those possessed by the Legislature of a. self-governing colony. These powers would no doubthave been eventually increased. This scheme oi Home Rule could have .been •carried through the House of ; Lprds by the Tories .; but no Liberal Home •Rule scheme would be likely to get through -J'the Lords"— even if the Liberals were sincere. The Redmondites, however, rejected the Statutory Body— only to give temporary support to a far inferior Liberal scheme —and thus it has become necessary for the Sinn Fein men to fall back upon the General Council of County Councils. ♦ * * The leaders of the Irish people need more, of the patriotism of '98 and '48. Without bhis, and without the rental alertness necessary to enable them to seize such an opportunity for the popularisation of their principles as is now presented m Protestant Ulster, they will soon earn nothing but thfc contempt of Irishmen, The Redmoridites have Jost O'Brien, have lost Sheehan,, and now they have lost Sir Thomas Henry. Grattan Esmonds, who has gone over .to the Sinn Fein ' party ; if they do not quickly bestir themselves, they will c^ase to handle the gold of .the Irishmen taf America. Then the plight of such paltering patriots will indeed he pitiable ! Meanwhile, may Victor y crown the efforts of the bold % ."boys" of Belfast ; and may the policy of the Sinn Fein men render the tyranny qf the "Liberal" Government— with its prohibition of meetings m Mayo, and its threatened draieoonades m Ulster— profitless .and powerless.